Automatic question generation and answering based on monitored messaging sessions

ABSTRACT

Mechanisms are provided, in a first computing device, for sharing content of communication sessions. The mechanisms establish a first communication session between the first computing device and a second computing device. The first computing device is operated by a first user and the second computing device is operated by a second user. The apparatus establishes, in response to content of the first communication session indicating subject matter for which additional information is desired by at least one of the first user or the second user, a second communication session between the first computing device and a question and answer (QA) system. In response to an input by the first user requesting sharing of information, the first computing device automatically copies a portion of content of the first communication session to the second communication session as an input question submitted to the QA system.

BACKGROUND

The present application relates generally to an improved data processingapparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms forautomatically generating questions and obtaining answers for suchautomatically generated questions via a Question and Answer (QA) system,based on the monitoring of one or more related messaging sessions.

With the ever increasing proliferation of electronic communicationsystems in today's society, tasks are more often requiring that a userinterface with other parties via these electronic communication systemsin order to rectify problems or obtain information quickly. For example,instant messaging, chat sessions, texting, and the like, areincreasingly being used as a basis for users to communicate with partiesin order to complete a task, e.g., problem resolution or the like. Insome cases, the user may operate as an intermediary between two or moreother parties with which the user has separate communication sessionsand which are not aware of each other.

For example, a customer service representative, the “user” in this case,may have a first chat session established with a customer over a firstcommunication link in order to assist the customer with a problem thecustomer is encountering. The customer service representative (CSR) mayneed to contact a subject matter expert, such as a technician or thelike, in a second chat session, or access a database via an automatedmechanism, to obtain additional information to assist the CSR inassisting the customer. As such, the CSR, as an intermediary, is taskedwith having to manually share the information exchanged in one chatsession with a first party (e.g., the customer) with a second party(e.g., the subject matter expert) in a second communication connection,e.g., second chat session. As such, the user must manually enter theinformation gathered from one chat session into the other, e.g., bytyping the information in, performing a copy/paste operation or thelike.

In addition, there are times when a user may be involved in anelectronic communication conversation with a party and information isexchanged that the user does not recognize as being informationpertinent to solving the problems experienced by the party orinformation for which additional information is available that may behelpful in solving the problems experienced by the party. For example, acustomer may offhandedly mention that they are using a particularoperating system and the user, e.g., the CSR, may not realize that thisoperating system, combined with other factors, may be a root cause ofthe problem and a simple, yet obscure, solution may be available. As aresult, much time and effort may be expended trying to solve the party'sproblem which could have been avoided if the availability of additionalinformation or the importance of the supplied information wererecognized by the user.

SUMMARY

In one illustrative embodiment, a method, in a first computing devicecomprising a processor and a memory, for sharing content of onecommunication session with another communication session. The methodcomprises establishing, by the first computing device, a firstcommunication session between the first computing device and a secondcomputing device. The first computing device is operated by a first userand the second computing device is operated by a second user. The methodfurther comprises establishing, by the first computing device, inresponse to content of the first communication session indicatingsubject matter for which additional information is desired by at leastone of the first user or the second user, a second communication sessionbetween the first computing device and a question and answer (QA)system. The method also comprises, in response to an input by the firstuser to the first computing device requesting sharing of information ofthe first communication session with the second communication session,automatically copying, by the first computing device, a portion ofcontent of the first communication session to the second communicationsession as an input question submitted to the QA system.

In other illustrative embodiments, a computer program product comprisinga computer useable or readable medium having a computer readable programis provided. The computer readable program, when executed on a computingdevice, causes the computing device to perform various ones of, andcombinations of, the operations outlined above with regard to the methodillustrative embodiment.

In yet another illustrative embodiment, a system/apparatus is provided.The system/apparatus may comprise one or more processors and a memorycoupled to the one or more processors. The memory may compriseinstructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, causethe one or more processors to perform various ones of, and combinationsof, the operations outlined above with regard to the method illustrativeembodiment.

These and other features and advantages of the present invention will bedescribed in, or will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in theart in view of, the following detailed description of the exampleembodiments of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention, as well as a preferred mode of use and further objectivesand advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to thefollowing detailed description of illustrative embodiments when read inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is an example diagram of a distributed data processing system inwhich aspects of the illustrative embodiments may be implemented;

FIG. 2 is an example block diagram of a computing device in whichaspects of the illustrative embodiments may be implemented;

FIG. 3 is an example diagram illustrating a user interface forexchanging instant messages as part of a first communication sessionbetween a first human user and a second human user in accordance withone illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 4 is an example diagram illustrating a user interface in whichcandidate answers for a second communication session between a firsthuman user and an automated analysis system are provided in accordancewith one illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 5 is an example diagram illustrating a user interface for acommunication session between a first human user and a third human userin accordance with one illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 6 is an example block diagram of an analysis system in accordancewith one illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 7 is an example diagram of a QA system which may be used with themechanisms of the present invention in accordance with one illustrativeembodiment;

FIG. 8 illustrates a QA system pipeline for processing an input questionin accordance with one illustrative embodiment; and

FIG. 9 is an example flowchart outlining an example operation formonitoring an analyzing a communication session in accordance with oneillustrative embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The illustrative embodiments provide mechanisms for automaticallygenerating questions and obtaining answers for such automaticallygenerated questions via a Question and Answer (QA) system, based on themonitoring of one or more related messaging sessions. The mechanisms ofthe illustrative embodiments may automatically monitor the content andcontexts of one or more communication sessions, e.g., chat sessions,instant messaging sessions, voice communications, or the like, anddetermine, using a QA system or other natural language processing (NLP)based system, whether additional information is available for assistingin the handling of the issues, problems, situations, or the like, raisedor identified in the communication session. In addition, mechanisms areprovided for automatically sharing information exchanged in onecommunication session with another communication session withoutrequiring a user to manually enter or copy/paste the information fromone communication session to another.

In one illustrative embodiment, the present invention provides acommunication session interface that comprises a first portion forconducting a communication session with a first party, such as via achat or instant messaging mechanism. Text of the communication sessionmay be managed and displayed via this first portion such that the userand another party may communicate, a log of the communications may bemaintained, and the like, as is generally known in the art. In additionto this first portion of the communication session interface, a secondportion is provided for conducting a second communication session with asecond party, which may be another human being or an automated system.In one illustrative embodiment, this second communication session isconducted with a NLP based system, such as a QA system. In oneillustrative embodiment, this QA system may be the Watson™ QA systemavailable from International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation ofArmonk, N.Y.

Information from the first communication session may be extracted andautomatically inserted into the second communication session to generateone or more inputs for processing by the NLP based system, e.g.,questions to be submitted to the QA system. The NLP based system mayprocess these inputs and return results of this processing to the userfor use in assisting the user with the first communication session. Forexample, content and context of the first communication session may beanalyzed to generate one or more questions that may be submitted to theQA system via the second communication session. The “context” comprisesinformation extracted and correlated from multiple communications withina same communication session as well as information regarding theestablishment of the communication session, the parties involved in thecommunication session, and the like. The context may further compriseinformation about the parties known to the communication systems beingused, the NLP or QA system, or the like. For example, such informationmay include information about the type of computing device orcommunication device being used by the parties, a party's service plan,pricing information, usage information, or the like. Any otherinformation that may be used to discern the context of a communicationsession, and which may be used to determine if other sources ofinformation to assist with the communication session exist, may beincluded in the scope of the “context” information that may be gatheredand analyzed by the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments dependingon the particular implementation desired.

The questions may be automatically inserted into the secondcommunication session via the second portion of the interface. Resultsgenerated by the QA system, such as answers to the inserted questions,their corresponding confidence ratings, and the like, may be returned tothe user via the second portion or another results portion of theinterface. The user may then utilize these answers to assist in solvingthe issues, problems, or the like, identified in the first communicationsession. Moreover, mechanisms may be provided to automatically extractthe results information, or portions thereof, returned by the NLP or QAsystem and inset the extracted results information into the firstcommunication session.

In this way, mechanisms are provided for automatically assisting a userin responding to assistance requests in a first communication sessionwith another party. The mechanisms of the illustrative embodimentsfacilitate additional communication sessions being established andproviding automated mechanisms for sharing the content of onecommunication session with another. In addition, mechanisms are providedfor enlisting the assistance of NLP and/or QA systems to assist in thecommunications between the user and other parties either as a foregroundor background process.

The above aspects and advantages of the illustrative embodiments of thepresent invention will be described in greater detail hereafter withreference to the accompanying figures. It should be appreciated that thefigures are only intended to be illustrative of exemplary embodiments ofthe present invention. The present invention may encompass aspects,embodiments, and modifications to the depicted exemplary embodiments notexplicitly shown in the figures but would be readily apparent to thoseof ordinary skill in the art in view of the present description of theillustrative embodiments.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied as a system, method, or computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or anembodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may allgenerally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, aspects of the present invention may take the form of acomputer program product embodied in any one or more computer readablemedium(s) having computer usable program code embodied thereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be a system, apparatus, or device of an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, or semiconductor nature, anysuitable combination of the foregoing, or equivalents thereof. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: an electrical device havinga storage capability, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, arandom access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiberbased device, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM), anoptical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitablecombination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, acomputer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that cancontain or store a program for use by, or in connection with, aninstruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

In some illustrative embodiments, the computer readable medium is anon-transitory computer readable medium. A non-transitory computerreadable medium is any medium that is not a disembodied signal orpropagation wave, i.e. pure signal or propagation wave per se. Anon-transitory computer readable medium may utilize signals andpropagation waves, but is not the signal or propagation wave itself.Thus, for example, various forms of memory devices, and other types ofsystems, devices, or apparatus, that utilize signals in any way, suchas, for example, to maintain their state, may be considered to benon-transitory computer readable media within the scope of the presentdescription.

A computer readable signal medium, on the other hand, may include apropagated data signal with computer readable program code embodiedtherein, for example, in a baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such apropagated signal may take any of a variety of forms, including, but notlimited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combinationthereof. A computer readable signal medium may be any computer readablemedium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that cancommunicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or inconnection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.Similarly, a computer readable storage medium is any computer readablemedium that is not a computer readable signal medium.

Computer code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmittedusing any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless,wireline, optical fiber cable, radio frequency (RF), etc., or anysuitable combination thereof.

Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of thepresent invention may be written in any combination of one or moreprogramming languages, including an object oriented programming languagesuch as Java™, Smalltalk™, C++, or the like, and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages. The program code may execute entirely on theuser's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alonesoftware package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remotecomputer, or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latterscenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computerthrough any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider).

Aspects of the present invention are described below with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to the illustrativeembodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block ofthe flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations ofblocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can beimplemented by computer program instructions. These computer programinstructions may be provided to a processor of a general purposecomputer, special purpose computer, or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions,which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmabledata processing apparatus, create means for implementing thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computerreadable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable dataprocessing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instructions thatimplement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer,other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to causea series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, otherprogrammable apparatus, or other devices to produce a computerimplemented process such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer or other programmable apparatus provide processes forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions.

Thus, the illustrative embodiments may be utilized in many differenttypes of data processing environments. In order to provide a context forthe description of the specific elements and functionality of theillustrative embodiments, FIGS. 1 and 2 are provided hereafter asexample environments in which aspects of the illustrative embodimentsmay be implemented. It should be appreciated that FIGS. 1 and 2 are onlyexamples and are not intended to assert or imply any limitation withregard to the environments in which aspects or embodiments of thepresent invention may be implemented. Many modifications to the depictedenvironments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

FIG. 1 depicts a pictorial representation of an example distributed dataprocessing system in which aspects of the illustrative embodiments maybe implemented. Distributed data processing system 100 may include anetwork of computers in which aspects of the illustrative embodimentsmay be implemented. The distributed data processing system 100 containsat least one network 102, which is the medium used to providecommunication links between various devices and computers connectedtogether within distributed data processing system 100. The network 102may include connections, such as wire, wireless communication links, orfiber optic cables.

In the depicted example, server 104 and server 106 are connected tonetwork 102 along with storage unit 108. In addition, clients 110, 112,and 114 are also connected to network 102. These clients 110, 112, and114 may be, for example, personal computers, network computers, or thelike. In the depicted example, server 104 provides data, such as bootfiles, operating system images, and applications to the clients 110,112, and 114. Clients 110, 112, and 114 are clients to server 104 in thedepicted example. Distributed data processing system 100 may includeadditional servers, clients, and other devices not shown.

In the depicted example, distributed data processing system 100 is theInternet with network 102 representing a worldwide collection ofnetworks and gateways that use the Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols to communicatewith one another. At the heart of the Internet is a backbone ofhigh-speed data communication lines between major nodes or hostcomputers, consisting of thousands of commercial, governmental,educational and other computer systems that route data and messages. Ofcourse, the distributed data processing system 100 may also beimplemented to include a number of different types of networks, such asfor example, an intranet, a local area network (LAN), a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the like. As stated above, FIG. 1 is intended as anexample, not as an architectural limitation for different embodiments ofthe present invention, and therefore, the particular elements shown inFIG. 1 should not be considered limiting with regard to the environmentsin which the illustrative embodiments of the present invention may beimplemented.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example data processing system in whichaspects of the illustrative embodiments may be implemented. Dataprocessing system 200 is an example of a computer, such as client 110 inFIG. 1, in which computer usable code or instructions implementing theprocesses for illustrative embodiments of the present invention may belocated.

In the depicted example, data processing system 200 employs a hubarchitecture including north bridge and memory controller hub (NB/MCH)202 and south bridge and input/output (I/O) controller hub (SB/ICH) 204.Processing unit 206, main memory 208, and graphics processor 210 areconnected to NB/MCH 202. Graphics processor 210 may be connected toNB/MCH 202 through an accelerated graphics port (AGP).

In the depicted example, local area network (LAN) adapter 212 connectsto SB/ICH 204. Audio adapter 216, keyboard and mouse adapter 220, modem222, read only memory (ROM) 224, hard disk drive (HDD) 226, CD-ROM drive230, universal serial bus (USB) ports and other communication ports 232,and PCI/PCIe devices 234 connect to SB/ICH 204 through bus 238 and bus240. PCI/PCIe devices may include, for example, Ethernet adapters,add-in cards, and PC cards for notebook computers. PCI uses a card buscontroller, while PCIe does not. ROM 224 may be, for example, a flashbasic input/output system (BIOS).

HDD 226 and CD-ROM drive 230 connect to SB/ICH 204 through bus 240. HDD226 and CD-ROM drive 230 may use, for example, an integrated driveelectronics (IDE) or serial advanced technology attachment (SATA)interface. Super I/O (SIO) device 236 may be connected to SB/ICH 204.

An operating system runs on processing unit 206. The operating systemcoordinates and provides control of various components within the dataprocessing system 200 in FIG. 2. As a client, the operating system maybe a commercially available operating system such as Microsoft® Windows7®. An object-oriented programming system, such as the Java™ programmingsystem, may run in conjunction with the operating system and providescalls to the operating system from Java™ programs or applicationsexecuting on data processing system 200.

As a server, data processing system 200 may be, for example, an IBM®eServer™ System P® computer system, running the Advanced InteractiveExecutive (AIX®) operating system or the LINUX® operating system. Dataprocessing system 200 may be a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) systemincluding a plurality of processors in processing unit 206.Alternatively, a single processor system may be employed.

Instructions for the operating system, the object-oriented programmingsystem, and applications or programs are located on storage devices,such as HDD 226, and may be loaded into main memory 208 for execution byprocessing unit 206. The processes for illustrative embodiments of thepresent invention may be performed by processing unit 206 using computerusable program code, which may be located in a memory such as, forexample, main memory 208, ROM 224, or in one or more peripheral devices226 and 230, for example.

A bus system, such as bus 238 or bus 240 as shown in FIG. 2, may becomprised of one or more buses. Of course, the bus system may beimplemented using any type of communication fabric or architecture thatprovides for a transfer of data between different components or devicesattached to the fabric or architecture. A communication unit, such asmodem 222 or network adapter 212 of FIG. 2, may include one or moredevices used to transmit and receive data. A memory may be, for example,main memory 208, ROM 224, or a cache such as found in NB/MCH 202 in FIG.2.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardware inFIGS. 1 and 2 may vary depending on the implementation. Other internalhardware or peripheral devices, such as flash memory, equivalentnon-volatile memory, or optical disk drives and the like, may be used inaddition to or in place of the hardware depicted in FIGS. 1 and 2. Also,the processes of the illustrative embodiments may be applied to amultiprocessor data processing system, other than the SMP systemmentioned previously, without departing from the spirit and scope of thepresent invention.

Moreover, the data processing system 200 may take the form of any of anumber of different data processing systems including client computingdevices, server computing devices, a tablet computer, laptop computer,telephone or other communication device, a personal digital assistant(PDA), or the like. In some illustrative examples, data processingsystem 200 may be a portable computing device that is configured withflash memory to provide non-volatile memory for storing operating systemfiles and/or user-generated data, for example. Essentially, dataprocessing system 200 may be any known or later developed dataprocessing system without architectural limitation.

Referring again to FIG. 1, in accordance with the illustrativeembodiments, one or more of the servers 104, 106 may provide afunctionality for facilitating communication sessions between users ofclient computing devices 110, 112, and 114. This is depicted in FIG. 1as the communication system 120 coupled to server 106. Thecommunications may be text-based communications, such as short messageservice (SMS) messaging, instant messaging, chat messaging, electronicmail communications, or the like. These communications may also takeother forms including voice communications which may be converted to atextual equivalent using speech recognition mechanisms, or the like. Forpurposes of the running example used in this description, thecommunications will be assumed to be text based instant messagingcommunications. However, it again should be appreciated that this isonly an example and other types of communications can be used with themechanisms of the illustrative embodiments without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

In the present description, an example scenario comprising a first partycommunicating with a user of the illustrative embodiments of the presentinvention for purposes of solving a problem encountered by the firstparty. This is a typical scenario that may be encountered by a customerservice representative (CSR) of an organization attempting to assist acustomer with the problem that the customer is encountering with aproduct or service provided by the organization. This scenario will beused only as an example for illustrating the advanced functionality ofthe illustrative embodiments as is not intended to be limiting on theillustrative embodiments of the present invention. To the contrary, theillustrative embodiments may be used with any communication betweenparties and the user, as will be readily apparent to those of ordinaryskill in the art in view of the present description.

Thus, as an example scenario, consider a user of the client computingdevice 110 logging onto, calling into, or otherwise connecting to thecommunication system 120 hosted by the server 106, via network 102, toinitiate a communication session with a user of client computing device114 via the communication system 120. That is, for example, manyproduct/service providers have associated Internet web sites throughwhich support for their products/services may be obtained through a livechat session with a customer service representative (CSR). In such ascenario, a user of the client computing device 110 may log onto thewebsite for the provider and select to engage in a live chat sessionwith a CSR via the website which hosts an instance of the communicationsystem 120 by virtue of being hosted by the server 106 or otherwiseassociated with server 106, although the website itself may be hosted byanother computing device coupled to network 102. The user of clientcomputing device 100 will be referred to as the “customer” in thisscenario with the user of the client computing device 114 being the CSRor “user” of the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments. Through thecommunication session established via the communication system 120 ofserver 106, the customer may send instant messages, or “chats,” to theCSR regarding a problem or question that the customer needs to haveresolved. In addition, the CSR may send instant messages, or “chats,”back to the customer via the communication session in an attempt toassist the customer with the resolution of the problem or question thatthe customer needs to have resolved. The establishment of suchcommunication sessions and the exchange of instant messages via suchcommunication sessions is generally known in the art and thus, a moredetailed explanation of the mechanics behind the establishment of suchcommunication sessions and the exchange of messages is not providedherein.

In accordance with the illustrative embodiments, the communicationsystem 120 may further implement an interface 125 for communicating withan analysis engine 130 to assist in communications exchanged between thecustomer and CSR via the communication session established through thecommunication system 120. The analysis system 130 may be provided on thesame computing device, e.g., server 106, as the communication system 120or on a separate computing device, e.g., server 104 as depicted. Theanalysis system 130 may be integrated with the communication system 120or may be separate from the communication system 120, as depicted. Theinterface 125 provides a communication pathway for control/data messagesbetween the communication system 120 and the analysis system 125. Thisinterface may cause control/data messages to be exchanged between thesystems 120 and 130 via the network 102, for example.

The analysis system 130 performs analysis on the content and context ofthe communications exchanged via a communication session established bythe communication system 120 between two or more parties, e.g., thecustomer and the CSR. The analysis may be performed as a backgroundoperation with regard to the communications being exchanged by the CSRwith the customer or may be a foreground operation that is known to theCSR and/or specifically requested by the CSR. For example, in oneillustrative embodiment, when a communication session is created betweena user of one client device and a user of another client device via thecommunication system 120, the registration of the communication sessionmay cause a notification to be sent to the analysis system 130indicating the configuration information for the communication sessionand thereby requesting the analysis system 130 to automatically monitorthe content and context of the communications exchanged as part of thatcommunication session. The analysis system 130 may automaticallygenerate any necessary internal data structures needed to perform themonitoring and subsequent analysis of the communications and may performits operations in the background without the performance of thesefunctions being readily perceived by the users of the client devicesuntil such time as the analysis system determines that a notificationthat it has additional information pertinent to the communicationsshould be sent to one or more of the users. The analysis system 130 maythen collect information about the communications exchanged as part ofthe communication session, analyze them, perform natural languageprocessing and/or question and answer processing operations based on theinformation collected, and generate results which may be used togenerate alerts and provide additional information pertinent to thecommunications. These alerts and additional pertinent information may besent to the communication system 120 for presentation to one or more ofthe parties, or users, involved in the communication session.

For example, in response to a communication session being establishedbetween two users of client computing devices, e.g., a customer andcustomer support representative, the analysis system 130 is informed ofthe establishment of the communication session, generates its owninternal data structures for monitoring and analyzing thecontent/context of the communications, and begins monitoring thecommunications. For example, the communications may be analyzed toextract various natural language processing features, e.g., focus,lexical answer type (LAT), subject, verbs, prepositional phrases, andvarious other types of natural language processing features. Thisinformation may be used to automatically generate questions to be posedto a question and answer (QA) system 140, such as the Watson™ QA systempreviously mentioned above. The questions are processed by the QA system140 to generate one or more candidate answers to the posed questions.The QA system 140 returns the one or more candidate answers along withmeasures of their confidence to the analysis system 130 which determinesis a required level of confidence is met by any of the one or morecandidate answers. If not, the analysis system 130 continues to monitorand analyze the communications and submit questions to the QA system 140until one or more candidate answers are returned that do meet therequisite level of confidence. Monitoring and analysis of thecommunications may continue even after such candidate answers with therequisite level of confidence are found so that additional candidateanswers may be identified.

In response to one or more of the candidate answers having a confidencemeasure that meets or exceeds the requisite level of confidence, theanalysis system 130 may generate an alert that is sent to thecommunication system 120. The communication system 120 may then generatea message corresponding to the alert that is sent to one or more of theparties involved in the communication session. For example, thecommunication system 120 may send an alert to the CSR that the QA system140 found additional pertinent information that may be helpful to theCSR in resolving the problems or issues raised by the customer duringthe communication session. The alert message may contain the additionalinformation obtained from the results generated by the QA system or mayprovide an interface through which the CSR may select whether or not toreceive the additional information. Either if the alert message containsthe additional information, or if the CSR selects via the interface toreceive the additional information, the additional information generatedfrom the one or more candidate answers having a requisite level ofconfidence is presented to the CSR for consideration. In such a case,the additional information may include not only the candidate answer(s)having the requisite level of confidence but may also includeinformation about the question(s) posed to the QA system that generatedthe candidate answer(s).

In one illustrative embodiment, if the QA system does not generate anycandidate answers having a sufficiently high confidence measure, i.e. aconfidence measure meeting or exceeding the predetermined requisiteconfidence measure, then a third party analysis service may be invokedautomatically to assist or a user selectable option may be output to theCSR to request whether the CSR wants to invoke the assistance of a thirdparty analysis service. For example, if the QA system does not generatea sufficiently confident measure for a candidate answer, the CSR mayrequest the assistance of a third party service, such as a search engineor the like, to assist with finding answers to the question.

As an example, consider a scenario where a customer asks a question apart of a communication session with a CSR and the CSR does not know theanswer to the question and submits the question to the QA system. If theQA system does not know the answer, i.e. cannot generate a candidateanswer with sufficient confidence measure, an Internet search for themay be initiated using the input question as a basis for the search, thequestion may be submitted to a forum for other users to respond to, oranother third party mechanism may be invoked to search for the answerfor the input question. The invoking of the third party mechanism may beperformed automatically with the input question passed automatically tothis third party mechanism. The output of the third party mechanism maybe returned to the QA system and may be used as further information toassist in the QA system generating an answer, e.g., as additional corpuscontent, as additional evidence passages, or the like.

In some illustrative embodiments, a user interface option may bepresented to allow the CSR to initiate the automatic insertion of theadditional information into the communication session between the CSRand the customer. Moreover, if more than one candidate answer isidentified that has a requisite level of confidence, then interfaceoptions may be provided for allowing the CSR to select which candidateanswer(s) and corresponding question(s) to include in the automaticinsertion. Thus, the CSR may identify which of the candidate answer(s)is the most relevant to the communication session.

Alternatively, rather than performing such monitoring and analysisautomatically as a background operation until an alert is generated, themechanisms of the illustrative embodiments may be user driven such thatone or more of the users involved in the communication session mustrequest the assistance of the analysis system 130. For example, thecommunication system 120, in generating user interfaces to be renderedat the client computing devices 110, 114, and through which thecommunications are presented to the users involved in the communicationsession, may generate user interface elements for requesting theassistance of the analysis system 130, e.g., a user selectable virtualbutton or the like. In such a case, in response to a user selecting theuser interface element, the functionality described above may beinitiated by the analysis system 130. Thus, if the CSR is able to handlethe customer's request for assistance, then the functionality of theanalysis system 130 may not be invoked. However, if the CSR determinesthat additional assistance is needed to satisfactorily handle thecustomer's request for assistance, then the CSR is given the option toenlist the help of the analysis system 130.

In one illustrative embodiment, the analysis performed by the analysissystem 120 may comprise implementing logic for identifying content orcontext within the communications indicative of a need to involve one ormore other persons in the communications, e.g., a subject matter expert,supervisory personnel, or the like. As a result, the analysis system 130may automatically generate a request that is sent to the communicationsystem 120 to initiate a communication session with the other identifiedperson(s) that should be included in the communications of the firstcommunication session.

For example, assume that a user of client computing device 110, the“customer,” contacts the customer service support for a provider of aproduct via a website hosted by server 106, and initiates acommunication session with a customer service representative (CSR) viathe communication system 120. Either automatically, or at the request ofthe CSR, for example, the analysis system 130 may monitor the contentand context of the communications between the customer and the CSR andidentifies a trend within the context of the communications exchangedthat the customer is frustrated with the response being received and asa result, may automatically initiate a communication session with asupervisor of the CSR. This communication session may be between thesupervisor and the CSR, between the supervisor and the customer, or athree-way communication session. In this way, the severity of thecustomer's problems or issues may be automatically elevated to asupervisory level. This process can be repeated up to a desired level ofa hierarchy such that additional communication sessions may be initiatedwhen appropriate.

As another example, the analysis system 130 may analyze the content andcontext of the communications and determine that the communicationsreference a particular product and particular problem and that the CSRhas not adequately responded to the customer's problem within a certainnumber of communications, certain amount of time since the communicationsession was established, or that there are other indicia of a need foradditional assistance for the CSR. In such a case, a communicationsession may be automatically initiated between the CSR client computingdevice 114 and another client computing device 112 of a subject matterexpert determined to be the appropriate subject matter expert for theparticular product, problem, or the like. Alternatively, a message maybe output to the CSR that requests whether the CSR would like to enlistthe assistance of a subject matter expert and may identify a suggestedsubject matter expert and their credentials. The CSR may then select auser interface element for initiating a second communication sessionbetween the CSR and the subject matter expert or select a user interfaceelement to decline the assistance of the subject matter expert.Moreover, the communication system 120 may further provide a userinterface to the CSR with a user interface element for the CSR tospecifically request that the analysis system 130 identify if a subjectmatter expert is available to assist the CSR, in which case the analysissystem 130 may perform its monitoring and analysis functions to identifya subject matter expert that can assist the CSR.

The identification of a particular person with which to initiate acommunication session may be performed using data structures correlatingparticular individuals with each other and/or with subject matter forwhich they are experts or generally responsible. For example, digitalversions of organizational charts, personnel databases comprisinginformation about personnel and their areas of expertise, and the like,may be used to identify which persons to initiate communication sessionswith and the contact information for their computing devices so thatappropriate communication sessions may be established via thecommunication system 120.

Content from one communication session may be automatically extractedand inserted into another communication session via the mechanisms ofthe illustrative embodiment. For example, if a second communicationsession is initiated with another party, e.g., supervisor, subjectmatter expert, or the like, content of the first communication sessionmay be automatically copied into the second communication session andvice versa. This copying of content may be performed semi-automaticallyin that the user may select whether to copy content from onecommunication session into the other and may specify which portions ofthe content may be copied over. For example, a CSR may initiate acommunication session with a subject matter expert and may automaticallycopy into the communication session with the subject matter expert,information provided by a customer in another communication session.When the subject matter expert responds with information that the CSRbelieves to be of value to the customer, the CSR may select an option toautomatically copy the information from the second communication sessioninto the first communication session between the CSR and the customer.For example, a user interface element may be output with each message,the most recent message, or the like, that gives an option to have thecontent of that message copied over into another communication session.

It should be appreciated that such copying over of information from onecommunication session to another is not limited to only communicationsessions between users, but instead may also be used with acommunication session established between the CSR and the analysissystem 130. That is, when the analysis system 130 is invoked, eitherautomatically or in response to the CSR's request, another communicationsession may be established between the CSR and the analysis system 130via the communication system 120. The CSR may then select a userinterface element associated with a message in a first communicationsession between a CSR and a customer to thereby copy the content of thatmessage to the second communication session between the CSR and theanalysis system 130. The analysis system may receive the message andprocess it, along with the context information for the firstcommunication session, to generate one or more questions to be submittedto the QA system 140, for example. Results generated by the QA system140 may be returned as a message in the second communication sessionwith the CSR who may then select a user interface element associatedwith the result message to have the results automatically copied overinto the first communication session between the CSR and the customer.Thus, an automated copy over functionality is provided.

Thus, the illustrative embodiments provide mechanisms for enabling thesharing of information and message content between concurrentcommunication sessions. Moreover, automatic or semi-automatic invocationof the assistance of an analysis system or other personnel is madeavailable based on content and context analysis of communicationsexchanged as part of a communication session. In addition, automaticmonitoring and analysis of communications is made possible as well suchthat the analysis system may operate as a virtual advisor to human usersoperating in the background and offering assistance when it isdetermined that the virtual advisory has pertinent information to thecommunications between the human users.

FIG. 3 is an example diagram illustrating a user interface forexchanging instant messages as part of a first communication sessionbetween a first human user and a second human user in accordance withone illustrative embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3, a first portion 310 ofthe user interface 300 is provided for displaying instant messagesexchanged between a user and another party, e.g., a customer. In thedepicted example, the user, Sandra, is a CSR and is communicating with acustomer, Joseph, via the communication system 120 with the userinterface 300 being displayed on the CSRs client computing device 116.

A user interface element 320 is provided for initiating a secondcommunication session with either another human user, such as a subjectmatter expert, an automated analysis system, or the like. The userinterface element 320 may be displayed as part of the user interface 300initially, or in response to an analysis system monitoring the contentand context of the communications of the first communication session anddetermining that a human user or automated analysis system may be ableto assist the CSR with resolving issues raised in the communication orotherwise add value to the conversation being conducted as part of thefirst communication session. In the depicted example, the user interfaceelement 320 is selectable by a user to initiate a second communicationsession with a question and answer (QA) system.

In response to the user, Sandra, selecting the user interface element320, a request is sent to the communication system 120 to initiate asecond communication session between the user, Sandra, client computingdevice and the QA system. The request may include an identification ofthe user's computing device, e.g., an address, device identifier, and/orthe like, for purposes of establishing a communication connection aswell as information about the first communication session to provide acontext for generating and submitting questions to the QA system.

In selecting the user interface element 320, content of the message(s)may be automatically selected for copying to a second portion of theuser interface 330 for communicating with the QA system. The analysisengine 130 may receive the selected communications and analyze theselected communications in conjunction with the context information forthe first communication session to generate one or more questions tosubmit to the QA system.

For example, in the depicted example, the message “When can I unlock myphone?” is selected for copying from the first communication session tothe second communication session. This message is provided to theanalysis engine 130 along with context information for the firstcommunication session which may include the user's name, e.g., JosephSmith. The analysis engine 130 may analyze the message to identify theelements of the message as well as the context and may generate aquestion for submission to a QA system based on results of the analysis.For example, in the depicted example, the pronoun “I” in the message maybe identified and replaced with the name “Joseph Smith” from the contextof the first communication session to generate a question of “When canJoseph Smith unlock his phone?” This may be assist in providing answersto questions that are specific to Joseph Smith's account, e.g., whetherhe has a service contract, the terms of the service contract, etc.

Another example may be that the user submits the statement “my phone islocking up when I press the ‘answer call’ button.” The mechanisms of theillustrative embodiments may replace ‘phone’ with ‘Apple iPhone 5’ andconvert the statement to a question that is able to be submitted to a QAsystem, e.g., “Why is Joseph Smith's Apple iPhone 5 locking up when hepresses the ‘answer call’ button?.” The system, in this example, knowswhat device the user has from other data sources, such as user accountdata structures or the like, with the identification of the user comingfrom the metadata associated with the connection, user session, etc.This identification of the user's device may assist in providing asolution to the user's issue in that the answer to the user's questionor request for assistance may vary by device.

The question(s) generated by the analysis engine 130 may be displayed inthe second portion 330 of the user interface 300 for viewing by theuser, Sandra. In addition, the generated question may be submitted tothe QA system for processing. The QA system operates on a submittedquestion(s) and generates candidate answers based on the submittedquestions. This generation of candidate answers to the question(s)involves performing an analysis of a corpus of information to findportions of content in the corpus of information that provide answers tothe question(s). The corpus of information may comprise various sourcesof information including various databases, document collections, andthe like. The corpus of information may further comprise customerdatabase information which may be used to provide specific answers foranswering questions for the specific user involved in the communicationsof the first communication session or the specific context of thecommunication session.

As mentioned above, the invocation of the functionality of the analysisengine may be based on a user input requesting assistance from theanalysis engine or may be automatic/semi-automatic, such as in responseto a background monitoring of the communications in a communicationsession and a determination that the analysis engine may be able toassist with or add value to the conversation being held in thecommunication session. Of course a combination of user initiated andautomatic/semi-automatic invocation of the analysis engine may be usedwithout departing from the spirit and scope of the illustrativeembodiments or the present invention. With the automatic invocation ofthe analysis engine, the analysis engine may, as a background process,monitor communication sessions generated by the communication system andmay automatically generate questions to be submitted to the QA system,receive candidate answers back as results of processing these questionsby the QA system, and determine if the results have sufficientconfidence to warrant providing the results to the user, e.g., the CSR.In such a case, the analysis engine may automatically return the resultsgenerated by the QA system by displaying those results in the secondportion 330 of the user interface 300. Alternatively, in asemi-automatic embodiment, before displaying the results generated bythe QA system, an alert message, user interface element, or the like,may be output via the user interface 300 to inform the user thatassistance is available and to provide a means by which the user mayenter an input specifying whether the user wishes to accept theassistance or not.

In a combination embodiment, the automatic/semi-automatic implementationmay be utilized to provide results generated by a QA systemautomatically as a background process, but also providing a userinterface element for allowing the user to request assistance from theanalysis engine when desired. For example, a user interface element 320may be provided to request assistance from the analysis system and ifthe analysis engine determines that assistance is available, i.e. acandidate answer has been returned by the QA system that has apredetermined threshold level of confidence, then the analysis enginemay cause the user interface 300 to output results returned by the QAsystem. The results may be automatically inserted into the secondportion 330 of the user interface 300, as depicted, or may be presentedin a separate portion of the user interface 300 (not shown).

FIG. 4 is an example diagram illustrating a user interface in whichcandidate answers for a second communication session between a firsthuman user and an automated analysis system are provided in accordancewith one illustrative embodiment. As shown in FIG. 4, the question “Whencan I unlock my phone?” has been analyzed by the analysis engine, eitherautomatically or in response to a user input requesting assistance bythe analysis engine, and converted based on the context of thecommunications in the first communication session to a question of thetype “When can Joseph Smith unlock his phone?” which is submitted to theQA system. As a result, the QA system processes the submitted questionusing a corpus of information pertinent to the question, as determinedby analyzing the question, determining the focus of the question,lexical answer type (LAT), and the like, and generates the one or morecandidate answers for the input question along with their correspondingconfidence scores.

In the present case, a candidate answer 410 is generated and output viathe second portion 330 of the user interface 300. The candidate answermay be used as a basis for generating an answer specific to the contextof the communications in the first communication session depicted in thefirst portion 310 of the user interface 300. In this case, the customerdatabase for customers of the organization for which the user works maybe accessed by the analysis engine to correlate the candidate answerwith specific information for the context of the first communicationsession. In the depicted example, the candidate answer 410 that isreturned by the QA system answers the input question “When can JosephSmith unlock his phone?” by stating that “Here is the criteria to unlockthe phone: (1) the person requesting the unlock must be a customer; (2)the phone has not been reported lost or stolen; (3) account is in goodstanding; and (4) phone must have been active for at least 120 days.”This candidate answer 410 may be correlated with information from thecustomer database to determine how this candidate answer 410 correlateswith the specific context of the communications in the firstcommunication session. This may include, in this example, comparing thecriteria specified in the candidate answer 410 with data about thespecific customer, i.e. Joseph Smith. For example, the customer databasemay be queried to determine whether Joseph Smith is a customer, whetherJoseph Smith's phone has been reported lost or stolen, whether JosephSmith's account is in good standing, and how long Joseph Smith's phonehas been active. Based on this information, the candidate answer 410 maybe used along with the correlation with context information to generatea context specific answer 420 that “Joseph Smith can unlock his phone onor after 30 Oct. 2013.”

As shown in FIG. 4, in addition, a user interface element 430, 440 maybe provided for sending the content of the second communication sessionwith the analysis engine, as depicted in the second portion 330 of theuser interface 300, to the first communication session between the userand the customer. If the user selects the user interface element 430,440 then the context specific answer 420 and/or the candidate answer 410may be automatically copied into the first communication session andtransmitted to the customer as another message in the firstcommunication session.

As mentioned above, the illustrative embodiments may further be utilizedto identify other personnel with which a user may communicate to assistin the communications between the user and the customer, e.g., a subjectmatter expert or the like. For example, either automatically,semi-automatically, or in response to a user input requestingassistance, the analysis engine may determine a subject matter of thecommunications in the first communication session and perform a lookupof the subject matter in an employee database or other organizationaldatabase to identify one or more other persons that may assist in thecommunications as well as their contact information for initiating acommunication session with these other persons. A user may select toinitiate a second communication session with one or more of these otherpersons or such a second communication session may be automaticallyinitiated. In such a case, similar mechanisms as described above in theuser interface 300 may be used to share content of communicationsbetween communication sessions by copying the content over from onecommunication session to another either automatically or in response toa user input selecting to perform such a copy over operation. In thisway, a user may maintain multiple concurrent communication sessions andshare information and content of messages between these concurrentcommunication sessions.

FIG. 5 is an example diagram illustrating a user interface for acommunication session between a first human user and a third human userin accordance with one illustrative embodiment. In this case, the firsthuman user, e.g., a customer service representative (CSR) may havealready established a first communication session with a customer asdepicted in the first portion 310 of the user interface 300. Inaddition, using one or more of the mechanisms described above in FIGS. 3and/or 4, the user may have also initiated a second communicationsession, depicted in the second portion 330 of the user interface 300,with an analysis engine to request that the analysis engine provideassistance to the user in resolving issues or adding value to thecommunications being exchanged between the CSR and the customer in thefirst communication session. As part of the assistance offered by theanalysis engine in the second communication session, the analysis enginemay identify a third human user, e.g., a subject matter expert, that theanalysis engine determines would provide value or assistance to the CSRin conducting the communications in the first communication session.

The identification of the third human user may be communicated to theCSR with a user selectable element 520 to initiate a third communicationsession with the identified third human user. Alternatively, the thirdcommunication session may be automatically initiated at the request ofthe analysis engine. The communication system may facilitate thecreation of this third communication session in a similar manner as itwas used to generate the first and second communication sessions. Athird portion 510 of the user interface 300 may be generated fordisplaying messages exchanged between the CSR and the identified thirdhuman user as part of the third communication session. As with the otherportions 310 and 330 of the user interface, user interface elements 530may be provided for copying content of messages from one communicationsession to another. The particular communication session to which tocopy the content may be specified in these user interface elements. Inthis way, content of any of the three communication sessions may beshared with any of the other communication sessions.

As described above, the illustrative embodiments provide mechanisms forcollaboration and sharing of information in an automatic orsemi-automatic manner between concurrent communication sessions withmultiple persons and/or automated systems, such an automated analysisengine, QA system, NLP system, or the like. Moreover, the mechanisms ofthe illustrative embodiments provide for the monitoring ofcommunications within a communication session and determining whetheradditional assistance is available from an analysis system, anotherhuman user, or the like. Mechanisms are provided for automaticallygenerating input to such analysis systems and receiving results fromsuch analysis systems which may then be automatically orsemi-automatically shared between communication sessions. Thus, anadvanced communication system is provided that enhances userexperiences.

FIG. 6 is an example block diagram of an analysis system in accordancewith one illustrative embodiment. The elements shown in FIG. 6 may beimplemented in hardware, software, or any combination of hardware andsoftware. In one illustrative embodiment, the elements of FIG. 6 areimplemented as software instructions executed by one or more processorsof one or more data processing systems and which may utilize additionalstorage, processing, and communication resources of these one or moredata processing systems to perform the operations and provide thefunctionality described herein. For example, the elements in FIG. 6 maybe implemented as software instructions executed by one or moreprocessors of server 104 or 106.

As shown in FIG. 6, the analysis engine 600 comprises a controller 610,a communication system interface 620, a communication session registrydatabase 630, a QA system interface 640, an organizational databaseinterface 650, an assistance determination module 660, and a graphicaluser interface generation module 670. The controller 610 controls theoverall operation of the analysis engine 600 and orchestrates theoperation of the other elements of the analysis engine 600. Thecommunication system interface 620 provides a communication pathwaythrough which a the analysis engine 600 may send/receive data andcontrol messages to/from the communication system, which is responsiblefor creating, maintaining, and tearing down communication sessionsbetween computing devices. It is via this interface 620 thatdata/control messages are exchanged with the communication system toobtain communication session registry information, present userinterfaces or portions of user interfaces to users for conductingcommunications and accessing additional assistance from analysissystems, such as the QA system, or other human users, such as subjectmatter experts. It is also via this interface 620 that user input touser interfaces from client computing devices may be received by theanalysis engine via the communication system.

The communication session register database 630 stores information aboutthe communication sessions established by the communication system andcurrently being maintained by the communication system. This informationmay include the context of the communication session, e.g., identifiersof parties involved, client computing devices, and the like. Moreover,this registry information may include information about whether a userhas requested assistance from the analysis engine, whether the analysisengine has determined automatically that assistance is available for thecommunication session, a link to results generated by an analysissystem, e.g., QA system, NLP system, or the like, links to other relatedcommunication sessions with which content of messages may be shared, andother types of information pertinent to the functionalities of analyzingcommunications of a communication session both based on content andcontext and providing assistance to a user for conducting communicationsas part of the communication session. The communication session registrydatabase 630 is updated as communication sessions are created,additional analysis and related communication sessions are created, andcommunication sessions are torn down.

The QA system interface 640 provides a communication pathway forcommunicating data to/from a QA system. In particular, the controller610 may receive content of communications and context information for acommunication session via the communication system interface 620 and maygenerate one or more questions to be submitted to the QA system via theQA system interface 640. The QA system interface 640 may further receiveresults, e.g., candidate answers and corresponding confidence measuresor scores, from the QA system and provide the results to the assistancedetermination module 660 for processing to provide assistance to a uservia a user interface.

The organizational database interface 650 provides a communicationpathway to one or more organizational data structures or databasescomprising information about potential subject matter experts,hierarchical arrangements for identifying related personnel (e.g.,supervisors or the like), or other individuals that may be capable ofassisting in the communications being conducted between the user and acustomer. The controller 610 may initiate a search of suchorganizational data structures to identify other individuals with whicha related communication session should be created for communicationbetween the user and the other identified individual to obtainassistance with the communication being conducted between the user and acustomer in the first communication session. Such searches may be basedon a determined subject matter, problem, issue, request, or the like,identified in the communications of the communication session, thecontext of the communication session, and the like.

The assistance determination module 660 provides logic for determiningif assistance is available for a communication session, what thatassistance may be, and communicating with the graphical user interfacegeneration module 670 to generate one or more graphical user interfaces,or portions of graphical user interfaces, to present the assistance to auser. For example, the assistance determination module 660 may determinewhether an appropriate other individual is identified through the searchof the organizational data structures to provide assistance to the user.If so, a graphical user interface, graphical user interface element, orthe like, is generated to inform the user of the availability of theassistance, if more than one individual is identified, a listing ofavailable individuals from which to select, and provide an output of thecommunication session created between the user and the other identifiedindividual. The assistance determination module 660 may further receivecandidate answer results from the QA system and determine if theconfidence measures or scores associated with the candidate answers meetor exceed a predetermined required threshold of confidence. If so, thenthe corresponding candidate answers may be presented via a graphicaluser interface generated by the graphical user interface generationmodule 670 either automatically or in response to a user selecting apresented user interface element informing the user of the availabilityof QA system assistance. It should be appreciated that the controller610 may modify candidate answers to make them specific to the context ofthe communication session between the user and the customer aspreviously described above, and this specific candidate answer may beoutput via the graphical user interface generated by the module 670.

As mentioned above, some embodiments of the present invention utilize aQA system to assist a user with a communication in a first communicationsession. While the illustrative embodiments are not limited to such, andany analysis system may be used including other types of naturallanguage processing (NLP) systems, the QA system is used herein as anexample implementation of an illustrative embodiment. FIGS. 7-8 areexample diagrams of a QA system which may be used with the mechanisms ofthe present invention in accordance with one illustrative embodiment.

QA mechanisms operate by accessing information from a corpus of data orinformation (also referred to as a corpus of content), analyzing it, andthen generating answer results based on the analysis of this data.Accessing information from a corpus of data typically includes: adatabase query that answers questions about what is in a collection ofstructured records, and a search that delivers a collection of documentlinks in response to a query against a collection of unstructured data(text, markup language, etc.). Conventional question answering systemsare capable of generating answers based on the corpus of data and theinput question, verifying answers to a collection of questions for thecorpus of data, correcting errors in digital text using a corpus ofdata, and selecting answers to questions from a pool of potentialanswers, i.e. candidate answers.

Content creators, such as article authors, electronic document creators,web page authors, document database creators, and the like, maydetermine use cases for products, solutions, and services described insuch content before writing their content. Consequently, the contentcreators may know what questions the content is intended to answer in aparticular topic addressed by the content. Categorizing the questions,such as in terms of roles, type of information, tasks, or the like,associated with the question, in each document of a corpus of data mayallow the QA system to more quickly and efficiently identify documentscontaining content related to a specific query. The content may alsoanswer other questions that the content creator did not contemplate thatmay be useful to content users. The questions and answers may beverified by the content creator to be contained in the content for agiven document. These capabilities contribute to improved accuracy,system performance, machine learning, and confidence of the QA system.Content creators, automated tools, or the like, may annotate orotherwise generate metadata for providing information useable by the QAsystem to identify these question and answer attributes of the content.

Operating on such content, the QA system generates answers for inputquestions using a plurality of intensive analysis mechanisms whichevaluate the content to identify the most probable answers, i.e.candidate answers, for the input question. The illustrative embodimentsleverage the work already done by the QA system to reduce thecomputation time and resource cost for subsequent processing ofquestions that are similar to questions already processed by the QAsystem.

FIG. 7 depicts a schematic diagram of one illustrative embodiment of aquestion/answer creation (QA) system 700 in a computer network 702. Oneexample of a question/answer generation which may be used in conjunctionwith the principles described herein is described in U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2011/0125734, which is herein incorporatedby reference in its entirety. The QA system 700 may be implemented onone or morecomputing devices 704 (comprising one or more processors andone or more memories, and potentially any other computing deviceelements generally known in the art including buses, storage devices,communication interfaces, and the like) connected to the computernetwork 702. The network 702 may include multiple computing devices 704in communication with each other and with other devices or componentsvia one or more wired and/or wireless data communication links, whereeach communication link may comprise one or more of wires, routers,switches, transmitters, receivers, or the like. The QA system 700 andnetwork 702 may enable question/answer (QA) generation functionality forone or more QA system users via their respective computing devices710-712. Other embodiments of the QA system 700 may be used withcomponents, systems, sub-systems, and/or devices other than those thatare depicted herein.

The QA system 700 may be configured to implement a QA system pipeline708 that receive inputs from various sources. For example, the QA system700 may receive input from the network 702, a corpus of electronicdocuments 706, QA system users, or other data and other possible sourcesof input. In one embodiment, some or all of the inputs to the QA system700 may be routed through the network 702. The various computing devices704 on the network 702 may include access points for content creatorsand QA system users. Some of the computing devices 704 may includedevices for a database storing the corpus of data 706 (which is shown asa separate entity in FIG. 7 for illustrative purposes only). Portions ofthe corpus of data 706 may also be provided on one or more other networkattached storage devices, in one or more databases, or other computingdevices not explicitly shown in FIG. 7. The network 702 may includelocal network connections and remote connections in various embodiments,such that the QA system 700 may operate in environments of any size,including local and global, e.g., the Internet.

In one embodiment, the content creator creates content in a document ofthe corpus of data 706 for use as part of a corpus of data with the QAsystem 700. The document may include any file, text, article, or sourceof data for use in the QA system 700. QA system users may access the QAsystem 700 via a network connection or an Internet connection to thenetwork 702, and may input questions to the QA system 700 that may beanswered by the content in the corpus of data 706. In one embodiment,the questions may be formed using natural language. The QA system 700may interpret the question and provide a response to the QA system user,e.g., QA system user 710, containing one or more answers to thequestion. In some embodiments, the QA system 700 may provide a responseto users in a ranked list of candidate answers.

The QA system 700 implements a QA system pipeline 708 which comprises aplurality of stages for processing an input question, the corpus of data706, and generating answers for the input question based on theprocessing of the corpus of data 706. The QA system pipeline 708 will bedescribed in greater detail hereafter with regard to FIG. 8.

In some illustrative embodiments, the QA system 700 may be the Watson™QA system available from International Business Machines Corporation ofArmonk, N.Y., which is augmented with the mechanisms of the illustrativeembodiments described hereafter. The Watson™ QA system may receive aninput question which it then parses to extract the major features of thequestion, that in turn are then used to formulate queries that areapplied to the corpus of data. Based on the application of the queriesto the corpus of data, a set of hypotheses, or candidate answers to theinput question, are generated by looking across the corpus of data forportions of the corpus of data that have some potential for containing avaluable response to the input question.

The Watson™ QA system then performs deep analysis on the language of theinput question and the language used in each of the portions of thecorpus of data found during the application of the queries using avariety of reasoning algorithms. There may be hundreds or even thousandsof reasoning algorithms applied, each of which performs differentanalysis, e.g., comparisons, and generates a score. For example, somereasoning algorithms may look at the matching of terms and synonymswithin the language of the input question and the found portions of thecorpus of data. Other reasoning algorithms may look at temporal orspatial features in the language, while others may evaluate the sourceof the portion of the corpus of data and evaluate its veracity.

The scores obtained from the various reasoning algorithms indicate theextent to which the potential response is inferred by the input questionbased on the specific area of focus of that reasoning algorithm. Eachresulting score is then weighted against a statistical model. Thestatistical model captures how well the reasoning algorithm performed atestablishing the inference between two similar passages for a particulardomain during the training period of the Watson™ QA system. Thestatistical model may then be used to summarize a level of confidencethat the Watson™ QA system has regarding the evidence that the potentialresponse, i.e. candidate answer, is inferred by the question. Thisprocess may be repeated for each of the candidate answers until theWatson™ QA system identifies candidate answers that surface as beingsignificantly stronger than others and thus, generates a final answer,or ranked set of answers, for the input question. More information aboutthe Watson™ QA system may be obtained, for example, from the IBMCorporation website, IBM Redbooks, and the like. For example,information about the Watson™ QA system can be found in Yuan et al.,“Watson and Healthcare,” IBM developerWorks, 2011 and “The Era ofCognitive Systems: An Inside Look at IBM Watson and How it Works” by RobHigh, IBM Redbooks, 2012.

FIG. 8 illustrates a QA system pipeline for processing an input questionin accordance with one illustrative embodiment. The QA system pipelineof FIG. 8 may be implemented, for example, as QA system pipeline 708 ofQA system 700 in FIG. 7. It should be appreciated that the stages of theQA system pipeline shown in FIG. 8 may be implemented as one or moresoftware engines, components, or the like, which are configured withlogic for implementing the functionality attributed to the particularstage. Each stage may be implemented using one or more of such softwareengines, components or the like. The software engines, components, etc.may be executed on one or more processors of one or more data processingsystems or devices and may utilize or operate on data stored in one ormore data storage devices, memories, or the like, on one or more of thedata processing systems. The QA system pipeline of FIG. 8 may beaugmented, for example, in one or more of the stages to implement theimproved mechanism of the illustrative embodiments described hereafter,additional stages may be provided to implement the improved mechanism,or separate logic from the pipeline 800 may be provided for interfacingwith the pipeline 800 and implementing the improved functionality andoperations of the illustrative embodiments

As shown in FIG. 8, the QA system pipeline 800 comprises a plurality ofstages 810-880 through which the QA system operates to analyze an inputquestion and generate a final response. In an initial question inputstage 810, the QA system receives an input question that is presented ina natural language format. That is, a user may input, via a userinterface, an input question for which the user wishes to obtain ananswer, e.g., “Who are Washington's closest advisors?” In response toreceiving the input question, the next stage of the QA system pipeline500, i.e. the question and topic analysis stage 820, parses the inputquestion using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extractmajor features from the input question, classify the major featuresaccording to types, e.g., names, dates, or any of a plethora of otherdefined topics. For example, in the example question above, the term“who” may be associated with a topic for “persons” indicating that theidentity of a person is being sought, “Washington” may be identified asa proper name of a person with which the question is associated,“closest” may be identified as a word indicative of proximity orrelationship, and “advisors” may be indicative of a noun or otherlanguage topic.

The identified major features may then be used during the questiondecomposition stage 830 to decompose the question into one or morequeries that may be applied to the corpus of data/information 845 inorder to generate one or more hypotheses. The queries may be generatedin any known or later developed query language, such as the StructureQuery Language (SQL), or the like. The queries may be applied to one ormore databases storing information about the electronic texts,documents, articles, websites, and the like, that make up the corpus ofdata/information 845. That is, these various sources themselves,collections of sources, and the like, may represent different corpora847 within the corpus 845. There may be different corpora 847 definedfor different collections of documents based on various criteriadepending upon the particular implementation. For example, differentcorpora may be established for different topics, subject mattercategories, sources of information, or the like. As one example, a firstcorpora may be associated with healthcare documents while a secondcorpora may be associated with financial documents. Alternatively, onecorpora may be documents published by the U.S. Department of Energywhile another corpora may be IBM Redbooks documents. Any collection ofcontent having some similar attribute may be considered to be a corpora847 within the corpus 845.

The queries may be applied to one or more databases storing informationabout the electronic texts, documents, articles, websites, and the like,that make up the corpus of data/information, e.g., the corpus of data706 in FIG. 7. The queries being applied to the corpus ofdata/information at the hypothesis generation stage 840 to generateresults identifying potential hypotheses for answering the inputquestion which can be evaluated. That is, the application of the queriesresults in the extraction of portions of the corpus of data/informationmatching the criteria of the particular query. These portions of thecorpus may then be analyzed and used, during the hypothesis generationstage 540, to generate hypotheses for answering the input question.These hypotheses are also referred to herein as “candidate answers” forthe input question. For any input question, at this stage 840, there maybe hundreds of hypotheses or candidate answers generated that may needto be evaluated.

The QA system pipeline 800, in stage 850, then performs a deep analysisand comparison of the language of the input question and the language ofeach hypothesis or “candidate answer” as well as performs evidencescoring to evaluate the likelihood that the particular hypothesis is acorrect answer for the input question. As mentioned above, this mayinvolve using a plurality of reasoning algorithms, each performing aseparate type of analysis of the language of the input question and/orcontent of the corpus that provides evidence in support of, or not, ofthe hypothesis. Each reasoning algorithm generates a score based on theanalysis it performs which indicates a measure of relevance of theindividual portions of the corpus of data/information extracted byapplication of the queries as well as a measure of the correctness ofthe corresponding hypothesis, i.e. a measure of confidence in thehypothesis.

In the synthesis stage 860, the large number of relevance scoresgenerated by the various reasoning algorithms may be synthesized intoconfidence scores for the various hypotheses. This process may involveapplying weights to the various scores, where the weights have beendetermined through training of the statistical model employed by the QAsystem and/or dynamically updated, as described hereafter. The weightedscores may be processed in accordance with a statistical model generatedthrough training of the QA system that identifies a manner by whichthese scores may be combined to generate a confidence score or measurefor the individual hypotheses or candidate answers. This confidencescore or measure summarizes the level of confidence that the QA systemhas about the evidence that the candidate answer is inferred by theinput question, i.e. that the candidate answer is the correct answer forthe input question.

The resulting confidence scores or measures are processed by a finalconfidence merging and ranking stage 870 which may compare theconfidence scores and measures, compare them against predeterminedthresholds, or perform any other analysis on the confidence scores todetermine which hypotheses/candidate answers are the most likely to bethe answer to the input question. The hypotheses/candidate answers maybe ranked according to these comparisons to generate a ranked listing ofhypotheses/candidate answers (hereafter simply referred to as “candidateanswers”). From the ranked listing of candidate answers, at stage 880, afinal answer and confidence score, or final set of candidate answers andconfidence scores, may be generated and output to the submitter of theoriginal input question.

The QA system of FIG. 8 may be used to provide additional informationfor assisting a user during a conversation being held as part of acommunication session, as previously described above. The input questionto the QA system, and the QA system pipeline, may be automaticallygenerated from monitoring the communications being exchanged as part ofa first communication session. This monitoring may be done automaticallyas a background process or may be in response to a user request forassistance via a graphical user interface. The QA system providescandidate answers and their corresponding confidence measures or scoresback to an analysis engine for use in presenting assistance to the uservia a graphical user interface provided through the communication systemthat is used to establish and maintain communication sessions.

FIG. 9 is an example flowchart outlining an example operation formonitoring an analyzing a communication session in accordance with oneillustrative embodiment. The embodiment outlined in FIG. 9 comprises anautomatic background monitoring of communications in a communicationsession. However, as discussed above, it should be appreciated that thisis but one example embodiment and other embodiments may be based on auser request to obtain assistance from an analysis engine as receivedvia a user interface.

As shown in FIG. 9, the operation starts by establishing a firstcommunication session between a first client computing device and a usercomputing device (step 910). Information regarding the firstcommunication session is registered with an analysis engine (step 920)and the analysis engine begins monitoring communications exchanged aspart of the first communication session (step 930). The monitoring ofcommunications is made possible by copying the messages to the analysisengine which then performs natural language processing on the messagesto extract features from the messages. The features are analyzed todetermine a subject matter, focus, and other language elements of themessage which may then be correlated with similar extracted featuresfrom other messages within the same communication session.

From this, an understanding of the purpose, content, and context of thecommunication is generated and used to create one or more requests foradditional information to assist with the communications of the firstcommunication session (step 940). These requests may take the form ofqueries to organizational data structures for information regardingsubject matter experts, organizationally related persons, or the like,that may assist with the communications. These requests may also takethe form of one or more questions, for submission to a QA system, thatare automatically generated based on the features extracted from thecommunications and the specific context of the first communicationsession.

One or more second communication sessions are created via thecommunication system with one or more analysis systems (step 950). Therequests for additional information are sent to the respective QAsystems, search engines that search various data structures, and thelike, for processing (step 960) and results of the processing of theserequests are received from these various analysis systems via the one ormore second communication sessions (step 970). The results are processedto determine if the results provide sufficiently useful assistance forthe communications in the first communication session (step 980). If so,a user interface output to the user computing device is updated toinclude the results received from the analysis system(s) (step 990). Ifnot, the user interface is not updated.

In addition, the user interface may be updated to include a userinterface element to share the results between the first and secondcommunication sessions (step 1000). If a user selects this userinterface element (step 1010), then the results content presented in oneportion of the user interface as part of the second communicationsession is automatically copied to the first communication session anddisplayed in a corresponding portion of the user interface (step 1020).The operation then terminates.

As noted above, it should be appreciated that the illustrativeembodiments may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, anentirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardwareand software elements. In one example embodiment, the mechanisms of theillustrative embodiments are implemented in software or program code,which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software,microcode, etc.

A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing programcode will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectlyto memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can includelocal memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulkstorage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at leastsome program code in order to reduce the number of times code must beretrieved from bulk storage during execution.

Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards,displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system eitherdirectly or through intervening I/O controllers. Network adapters mayalso be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system tobecome coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers orstorage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems,cable modems and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currentlyavailable types of network adapters.

The description of the present invention has been presented for purposesof illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. Theembodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention, the practical application, and to enableothers of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention forvarious embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, in a first computing device comprisinga processor and a memory, for sharing content of one communicationsession with another communication session, the method comprising:establishing, by the first computing device, a first communicationsession between the first computing device and a second computingdevice, wherein the first computing device is operated by a first userand the second computing device is operated by a second user;establishing, by the first computing device, in response to content ofthe first communication session indicating subject matter for whichadditional information is desired by at least one of the first user orthe second user, a second communication session between the firstcomputing device and a question and answer (QA) system; and in responseto an input by the first user to the first computing device requestingsharing of information of the first communication session with thesecond communication session, automatically copying, by the firstcomputing device, a portion of content of the first communicationsession to the second communication session as an input questionsubmitted to the QA system.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: in response to establishing the first communication session,registering the first communication session with an analysis engine thatanalyzes content of the first communication session to determine ifadditional information is available to assist with the firstcommunication session, wherein the registration comprises providingcontext information for the first communication session to the analysisengine.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the analysis engine is aNatural Language Processing (NLP) engine that performs natural languageprocessing of the content of the first communication session.
 4. Themethod of claim 2, wherein the analysis engine further analyzes contextinformation associated with the first communication session, wherein thecontext information comprises information identifying characteristics ofthe second user.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the characteristicsof the second user comprises at least one of information identifying aconfiguration of the second computing device used by the second user,account information associated with the user, or personal informationabout the second user.
 6. The method of claim 2, further comprising:automatically establishing a third communication session with a secondcomputing device associated with a third user in response to theanalysis engine analyzing the content of the first communication sessionand, based on results of the analysis, identifies the third user, ashaving an associated characteristic that corresponds to a feature of thecontent of the first communication session.
 7. The method of claim 6,wherein the characteristic comprises at least one of organizationalrelationship information indicating an organizational relationshipbetween the third user and the first user or subject matter expertiseinformation for the third user.
 8. The method of claim 6, wherein thefeature of the content of the first communication session comprises afeature indicative of a frustration level of the second user with thefirst communication session and the characteristic is a supervisorylevel of the third user relative to the first user.
 9. The method ofclaim 6, wherein the feature of the content of the first communicationsession comprises a feature indicative of a subject matter of one ormore communications of the first communication session, and wherein thecharacteristic associated with the third user is an indicator of asubject matter expertise of the third user.
 10. The method of claim 1,further comprising: receiving, by the first computing device, resultsinformation generated by the QA system in response to receiving theinput question; outputting, by the first computing device, the resultsinformation to the first user, wherein the results information comprisesa candidate answer, generated by the QA system in response to the inputquestion, which has at least a threshold value level of confidencemeasure associated with the candidate answer; and automatically copyingat least a portion of the results information from the secondcommunication session into the first communication session such that theportion of the results information is output on the second computingdevice.
 11. A computer program product comprising a non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium having a computer readable programstored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed ona first computing device, causes the first computing device to:establish a first communication session between the first computingdevice and a second computing device, wherein the first computing deviceis operated by a first user and the second computing device is operatedby a second user; establish, in response to content of the firstcommunication session indicating subject matter for which additionalinformation is desired by at least one of the first user or the seconduser, a second communication session between the first computing deviceand a question and answer (QA) system; and in response to an input bythe first user to the first computing device requesting sharing ofinformation of the first communication session with the secondcommunication session, automatically copy a portion of content of thefirst communication session to the second communication session as aninput question submitted to the QA system.
 12. The computer programproduct of claim 11, further comprising: in response to establishing thefirst communication session, registering the first communication sessionwith an analysis engine that analyzes content of the first communicationsession to determine if additional information is available to assistwith the first communication session, wherein the registration comprisesproviding context information for the first communication session to theanalysis engine.
 13. The computer program product of claim 12, whereinthe analysis engine is a Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine thatperforms natural language processing of the content of the firstcommunication session.
 14. The computer program product of claim 12,wherein the analysis engine further analyzes context informationassociated with the first communication session, wherein the contextinformation comprises information identifying characteristics of thesecond user.
 15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein thecharacteristics of the second user comprises at least one of informationidentifying a configuration of the second computing device used by thesecond user, account information associated with the user, or personalinformation about the second user.
 16. The computer program product ofclaim 12, further comprising: automatically establishing a thirdcommunication session with a second computing device associated with athird user in response to the analysis engine analyzing the content ofthe first communication session and, based on results of the analysis,identifies the third user as having an associated characteristic thatcorresponds to a feature of the content of the first communicationsession.
 17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein thecharacteristic comprises at least one of organizational relationshipinformation indicating an organizational relationship between the thirduser and the first user or subject matte expertise information for thethird user.
 18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein thefeature of the content of the first communication session comprises afeature indicative of a frustration level of the second user with thefirst communication session and the characteristic is a supervisorylevel of the third user relative to the first user.
 19. The computerprogram product of claim 16, wherein the feature of content of the firstcommunication session comprises a feature indicative of a subject matterof one or more communications of the first communication session, andwherein the characteristic associated with the third user is anindicator of a subject matter expertise of the third user.
 20. Anapparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to theprocessor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to: establish a firstcommunication session between the apparatus and a first computingdevice, wherein the apparatus is operated by a first user and the firstcomputing device is operated by a second user; establish, in response tocontent of the first communication session indicating subject matter forwhich additional information is desired by at least one of the firstuser or the second user, a second communication, session between theapparatus and a question and answer (QA) system; and in response to aninput by the first user to the apparatus requesting sharing ofinformation of the first communication session with the secondcommunication session, automatically copy a portion of content of thefirst communication session to the second communication session as aninput question submitted to the QA system.